'Fascinating and refreshingly honest stares at life in a foreign place.' —Zoe Apostolides, Financial Times ; 'The stories in this impressive debut collection are often quite odd - generally in a good way - with peculiar and perplexing endings that demand a second reading. At times, they are both humorous and poignant; at others, as wars and rumors of wars ride the darker undercurrents, they seem disturbingly portentous.' —Loree L. Westron, LA Review of Books ; 'Dale is between cultures, rooted in one, integrated into another, perfectly placed as observer and participant. She writes with an entrancing blend of distance and intimacy. In this country, she is an immigrant, but one who knows us and our language too well for comfort. Reading her, it feels that someone who has learned to be one of us, now does it better than we do. She knows what makes us laugh, and what makes us laughable.' —Jeremy Hardy, comedian ; 'Agnieszka Dale's impressive debut depicts on a large canvas our current world of chaos. Her sharp, humorous, sensitive and metaphorical style confirms that a new, exciting voice has arrived on the scene.' —Xiaolu Guo, author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, nominated for 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction